<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>Nothing is Worse Than Knowing by KlingonEtiquette</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294228">Nothing is Worse Than Knowing</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KlingonEtiquette/pseuds/KlingonEtiquette'>KlingonEtiquette</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Magnus Archives (Podcast)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Creepy, Existential Crisis, Michael becomes the distortion, Non-Graphic Violence, creation of an avatar, mild violence, revenge wish, this is not a happy fic, vengeance</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 11:02:01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>649</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25294228</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KlingonEtiquette/pseuds/KlingonEtiquette</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>"One day, this Michael will kill the Archivist. It has never wanted this before, but it knows deep down that it will do it. It has to do it. Is it revenge? If it is, then for whom? That pointless other Michael would not have wanted this revenge, would he? Not on Gertrude Robinson, the frail old woman he trusted with all his young, sweet, and naïve heart. But this Michael burns with the desire to reach in with these long, strange fingers and rip the old woman’s throat out. It wants to see her suffer for what she has done to it, what she has taken from it, and yet it does not know whether this newfound desire belongs to it or to Michael Shelley. They both lost a great deal to Gertrude Robinson, in the end."</p>
<p>A rather introspective piece about Michael's transformation into the Distortion (and the Distortion's transformation into Michael).</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Nothing is Worse Than Knowing</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It is as exquisite as it is agonizing, the sudden, acute awareness that the man standing in the vortex is and is not the vortex itself. He is everything he has been until this moment, and yet he is not. He is everything he will be after, and yet he is not. There is no <em>him</em> left to be, and yet he is all that is left. In crossing the threshold, he has become an offering and a prison for the thing that is not and can never be, the thing that somehow exists in a world that does not and cannot allow it to exist, to manifest.</p>
<p>And then, just as suddenly as it began, the agony stops. The storm dies down and Michael is the only thing left standing of a place that never existed and never would. It is alone, surrounded by the viscera of its fallen disciples and the fragments of impossible doors. For a moment, it does not understand the crushing weight pressing down on its limbs—Wait. That’s it! Limbs. It should not have limbs. It has not had limbs in a very long time. How strange they feel now, at once too roomy and too cramped to be anything but uncomfortable. It has eyes, too. It knows these eyes, the eyes of its destruction, all dark and full of sudden, inescapable fear. The thing that is now Michael looked into these eyes mere moments ago, drinking in that fear with relish and joy. How wonderful it was to see that terror and how awful it is now to feel it…</p>
<p>Worst of all, Michael feels the fresh sting of betrayal burrowing underneath the skin that doesn’t belong to it, creeping into ill-fitting bones and taking root like ravenous weeds in a peaceful garden. There will be nothing left, it knows, when they are done feeding. But this rage, this hurt… It doesn’t <em>belong</em> to Michael—not <em>this </em>Michael, anyway. It belongs to the Michael who is gone now, who spent his entire life afraid of the thing that took his friend, of the thing that might come back for him. It belongs to the Michael who was betrayed by someone he trusted, someone he cared about even as he was torn apart and devoured by the thing that is now Michael. And now that Michael and Michael are one and the not-quite-same, it realizes that things have gone exactly the way Gertrude Robinson planned them. It realizes she wanted to throw her sweet, naïve assistant into the eye of the storm, to force the Distortion to contort and twist and force itself into the cramped space of a human body.</p>
<p>“Archivist…” it spits into the empty air with a voice it isn’t quite sure of. It does not want a voice; it should not <em>have</em> a voice it does not want. And yet… it does.</p>
<p>One day, this Michael will kill the Archivist. It has never wanted this before, but it knows deep down that it <em>will </em>do it. It <em>has </em>to do it. Is it revenge? If it is, then for whom? That pointless other Michael would not have wanted this revenge, would he? Not on Gertrude Robinson, the frail old woman he trusted with all his young, sweet, and naïve heart. But this Michael burns with the desire to reach in with these long, strange fingers and rip the old woman’s throat out. It wants to see her suffer for what she has done to it, what she has taken from it, and yet it does not know whether this newfound desire belongs to it or to Michael Shelley. They both lost a great deal to Gertrude Robinson, in the end. Michael Shelley lost his life and the Distortion that is now called Michael lost… Well, everything.</p>
<p>In the terrible, screaming silence, Michael laughs.</p>
<p> It does not recognize the sound.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>